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The Communists hailed Sriramulu's "supreme sacrifice," accused Nehru of "deliberate delay in [forming] Andhra state." When the All-India Parliament refused to stand up in homage to Sriramulu's memory, the Communist members walked out. A wave of hysterical emotion swept Andhra territory. Students, youths and workers, led by Communists, attacked Indian government property, cut telegraph wires, damaged railroads, burned rail cars and stoned fire engines, looted railroad restaurants, hoisted black flags of mourning over government buildings. Police, firing on rioters, killed seven and wounded forty. A 13-year-old boy attempted to halt a moving bus by standing in its path, and was run over and killed.
At week's end Prime Minister Nehru, responding perhaps as much to the violence as to Sriramulu's nonviolence, announced that his government had decided to establish Andhra state. But he still refused to include Madras city. To that extent, Potti Sriramulu of Madras city had died in vain.
-Only once before in modern Indian history has a hunger striker died: in 1929, Jyatin Das, an Indian revolutionary protesting against British jail treatment, perished after 65 days without food.